Taken by Her Irish Alpha: Rejected & Reborn Series Book 4, page 1
TAKEN BY HER IRISH ALPHA
REJECTED & REBORN BOOK 4
HALEY WEIR
Copyright © 2022 by Haley Weir
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CONTENTS
1. Ryla
2. Killian
3. Ryla
4. Killian
5. Ryla
6. Ryla
7. Killian
8. Ryla
9. Ryla
10. Killian
11. Ryla
12. Killian
13. Killian
14. Ryla
15. Killian
16. Ryla
17. Killian
18. Ryla
19. Killian
20. Ryla
The Rejected & Reborn Series
The Dragon’s Midlife Mate
About the Author
Complete Series by Haley Weir
1
RYLA
“Toss me another ale, would you, Ryla?”
I glance down at the end of the bar and see one of my customers waving his hand around as if he’s drowning and needs immediate attention. I can’t help but laugh since this guy is one of my regulars and to him, having an empty glass is about as dire a situation as having to tread water in a shark-infested ocean.
“Okay, okay, I’m coming,” I say as I smile at him. At least he tips well. Some of the customers don’t. The humans tip fairly well, but the shifters seem to think we have some sort of “blood code” that means they can drink on the house—spoiler alert, we don’t.
I’ve been working at this pub for years, ever since I fled Ireland and came to the U.K. to start a new life. It’s one of London’s most popular pubs and it is always crowded. There is rarely an open seat at my bar.
Is it the most glamorous life in the world? Probably not. But it is mine, and I built it from scratch. Most importantly, it’s a life free from the predetermined mate I had back in Ireland.
When I first got to London, I didn’t know very many other wolf shifters. I knew that I needed a roof over my head and food to eat, so I got a job here cleaning dishes. I worked hard and listened well, so one thing led to another, and before long I was the head bartender. After a while of working behind the bar, I began to meet some regulars who were shifters like me. Blaine, one of the lecturers at a university in the city, was one of my regulars for a while before he fell in love and moved on and stopped coming by so often. It happens—some of the old regulars move on and a new wave of clientele comes in. I’ve learned something from all of them and made a few friendships here and there.
The best chance encounter that I had was when the alpha of the London pack came in. He was eager and ready to take me into his pack and give me a sense of family. He reminded me that I didn’t have to feel as if I was a lone, floating asteroid in the city all by myself. For the most part, I stay out of trouble and keep my head down, not wanting anyone to know that I’m really a refugee who fled her home country right before I was supposed to get mated off to the alpha there. I prefer to keep the past in the past.
But tonight, the past decides to creep back up and out of its hole.
I’ve just finished making my rounds through the bar to refill everyone’s drinks, when I notice that there isn’t a spare seat in the whole pub. I turn around for a few minutes to make some cocktails and grab a fresh glass, and then turn back to join in some conversations with the customers while I whip up a new concoction. But as I look down the length of the bar, I can tell something is off.
There, sitting in a seat that was vacated by a frequent patron of the pub just a few moments ago, is someone quite unexpected. The man raises a finger in the air at me as if he wants to order a drink, and as if he expects me to come talk to him, knowing very well who he is. As soon as I see him, I’m so shocked that the glass I’ve been holding slips out of my hand and hits the ground with a sharp crash. I don’t look down to see where the shards of glass fell, or care about cleaning it up—I simply turn and run.
I bolt through the back kitchen and straight out the back door of the pub, spilling out into the city streets. I run as fast as I can on my human legs. It isn’t completely dark yet, and I don’t want to risk being spotted if I shift into a wolf. Thankfully, I get the jump on him and am able to run away before he can catch me. Still, I know how fast he is. As soon as I get behind a cluster of buildings to hide, I shift into wolf form, stick to the back alleys, and race all the way back to my flat.
It has been years since I’ve seen him—Killian.
Killian, the man who was my predetermined mate, and who I was supposed to bond with and stay with forever. I shake my head and try to clear the thoughts and the fear from my mind as I run.
The last time I saw him, I was just past the age of eighteen. I clearly remember the day that I met him for the first time. Killian was gruff, and rude, and I wanted nothing to do with him. I was so young, and I had so many dreams and ambitions—all of which would have ended if I had stayed in Ireland and mated with him.
He was just about to take over as the alpha of one of Ireland’s biggest wolf packs. Within the span of a few days, we were supposed to be mated, he was slated to rise to alpha status and take control of the pack, and I was expected to say goodbye to everything else that I’d wanted to do with my life. Shifter laws, especially the outdated and archaic ones, meant that I had to be mated to this man regardless of whether I wanted to. But I refused to abide by it, and to sentence myself to a life of misery and bondage to another person who I didn’t even know, or like, for that matter.
So, I did the only thing I could do—I ran. I rejected the old laws, and my mate, and I fled all the way to London and never looked back. I never thought that I would have to look back, until now.
When my apartment building comes into view, I shift back into human form. Luckily, I’ve stashed several shirts and other clothing items in various places near my block of flats in case I ever find myself needing a change of clothes after a shift. I nakedly walk a few steps and reach my hand in between a wide gap in the exposed brick of the building, pulling out a long T-shirt that is at least enough to cover all the bits that I don’t want to show. The humans are a bit sensitive about such things and you can’t just wander around naked in the city.
I enter my code into the building’s keypad and make sure to close the door securely behind me before I walk up the stairs to my flat. I always leave a spare key on top of the doorframe, but this time after I use it to unlock my door, I bring the key with me—just in case.
I feel a bit safer inside my flat and behind a locked door, but not much. My heartbeat is still thumping against the inside of my eardrums, and I have a nervous feeling that makes it hard to catch my breath and coats me with nausea.
How did he find me? What is he even doing here in London?
I’m in my mid-thirties now, and a long time has passed since I left; too long for Killian to come looking for me. I’m much too old now to take orders from anyone, let alone a mate that I rejected and ran from more than a decade ago. It must have taken a lot of nerve for him to show up at the pub during my shift, and that worries me.
The inside of my flat is cozy and messy. I don’t have much here but what I do have is mine. I’m not about to let this man from my past take any of it from me. I clawed my way up to a stable life here from nothing. Everything that I have now is hard-earned and precious to me. This life is precious to me. I don’t want anything to do with him or Ireland or the old rules that governed the rural countryside of my home.
London is so different from Ireland. Things are more progressive here, and the London pack doesn’t seek to try and control any of its shifters. My new life here makes my old life back in Ireland look like it was something from centuries ago.
I walk over to my window and look out. The city is getting dark now and the streetlights are coming on. I look for him, wanting to comfort myself with the fact that he has no idea where I live and won’t be able to find me here. But no sooner do I manage to take a breath of relief than I see Killian walking up to the front steps of the building. The sight of him at the pub was disarming enough, but the sight of him standing outside my apartment building is downright paralyzing.
“This is insane,” I whisper to myself as I quickly close the curtains and stand on the other side of the window, breathing heavily. I feel like I’m going to have a panic attack, and I need to calm myself down.
“He can’t get in. The building requires a passcode, and he doesn’t have it. Even if he were able to slide in behind one of the other tenants, he still wouldn’t be able to get inside my locked apartment,” I tell myself.
My self-talk is barely working. The thought of Killian on the other side of my door, with nothing but a thin slab of wood separating us, is not a reassuring one. Granted, I don’t really know anything about the man. But I know enough to know that I don’t want him here.
I walk ove
There he is, still standing by the front door of the building. Does he think that someone is going to let him in? Is he just going to stand there and wait until I eventually come out of the building to go to work or to the store? He can stand there and wait for an eternity, because I’m not coming out as long as he is still there. Thankfully, the people in my building are all pretty private. I don’t think anyone would willingly let him in. I stand there and stare at him until he looks up toward the building. Then, I quickly close the curtains again and sit down on my couch with my phone.
I call up the owner of my pub. I know he needs an explanation as to why I ran out there without warning.
“Ryla, where did you go? What happened?” the owner asks as I put him on speaker phone.
“Sorry,” I answer, realizing that I should have thought up a better excuse to use than the one I’m about to give. “I started to feel ill and had to leave. I think I might need to take tomorrow’s shift off too.”
“Okay,” he says with a sigh. “Next time, give me a head’s up before you just bail on a bar full of customers though, okay?”
“I will. I’m sorry again.”
“It’s alright. Do you need someone from the pack to bring you anything?”
It helps to know that the pub is owned and run by wolf shifters. We all tend to look out for each other.
“No, I think I’ll be fine. Just going to hole up in my flat until it goes away,” I answer. And by “it,” I actually mean this ghost from my past who is loitering outside my apartment building, not the seasonal flu.
“Okay, well get rest and feel better. Call me tomorrow if you need another day at home.”
I thank my boss and hang up, resisting the urge to peer out the window again until I start the kettle to make some tea and try to bring my nerves down a notch.
What am I going to do? Even if Killian leaves, he is obviously in the city to find and see me. There is no way to stop him from showing up at the pub again, and I really don’t feel like having to explain my whole backstory to the London pack. I’ve never told them anything about my past and everyone respects me enough to just let it be. It isn’t a grave that I want to dig up again.
When the shrill whistle of the kettle screams, I jump a mile. I pour my tea, sit down in front of the curtained-off window and try to think of a plan of action. By the time I’m halfway through my cup of Mint Medley, I’ve decided that as soon as Killian is gone, I’ll race back to the bar, meet with the alpha of the London pack, and tell him everything. He should be able to help me, and he won’t advertise my whole “runaway mate” story to the rest of the pack. I trust him enough to know that much, at least. Besides, he is a massively built alpha who would at least be a match for Killian if things got weird. And if Killian is showing up here after all this time—they are more than likely going to get weird.
I take one last glance out the window and am pleased to see that Killian isn’t there anymore. Maybe he gave up and left, although it seems too easy, considering he traveled all the way here from Ireland just to land on one of my bar stools.
I stare out the window for a few more minutes and see no sign of him. Still, I can’t be sure that he isn’t just lurking around a corner of the building. So, I decide to stay put in my flat for the rest of the night and venture out tomorrow if there is still no sight of him.
Unfortunately, there is sight of him in my dreams that night. After all these years of pushing my past out of my head, it seems determined to return.
2
KILLIAN
“Tracking down my runaway mate from over a decade ago is not exactly on the top of my list of things that I want to do,” I say as I sit beside the bonfire with one of the pack’s elders, Patrick.
“I know that, Killian, but you know the rules as well as I do. Shifter law dictates that by the time you turn thirty-five—which, I will remind you, is coming up—you must be married to your predetermined mate or else you will be forced to give up your status as alpha,” the old man says.
“I don’t need to be reminded of how old I am,” I grumble.
“Ah, but apparently you do need to be reminded of shifter law,” he teases.
I roll my eyes. The elders of the pack are very respected and valued, and I know just how far to push it with my sarcasm before coming across as rude.
“It’s a stupid law,” I complain.
“Perhaps. But it is still the law.”
“So, what happens if the mating ceremony isn’t completed in time?” I ask. “Poof, I’ll just no longer be alpha then? That doesn’t seem reasonable. I’ve been alpha for over a decade now. Who’s going to take my position away just because I haven’t completed the ceremony with my absentee mate?”
“Rival packs,” he answers. “Any number of them, but most likely the pack to the east. They are large in number and led by a less than desirable, power-hungry alpha who, as you already know, has had his eye on your pack and territory for some time now.”
“Eh, Clyde—he’s nothing more than a self-absorbed—”
Patrick interrupts me before I can get too far into my rant.
“Clyde may be an arrogant prick, and no one is debating that, but he is also powerful, and his pack is large. If he finds out that you have broken shifter law and no longer have a claim to the role of alpha, he will swoop in before you can howl and take a grasp at your pack.”
I sigh and lean back against one of the stumps that I carved into a chair beside the fire.
“She won’t want to come back,” I say, thinking aloud. “She took one look at me all those years ago and left everything behind just to get away from me.”
“I don’t know why.” One of the younger women in the pack, Anya, comes along with a few other shifters to sit beside the fire with us. “You’re handsome and strong. Any woman here would be thrilled to have you.”
“Most women here have,” I grin. She giggles and for a moment, I feel my old ways returning.
“Killian,” Patrick says with a tone of disapproval. “You are running out of time and it is your duty to—”
“Yes, yes, I know—protect my people. And have I ever fallen short of that duty?”
The old man can’t say anything to the contrary because, as playful as I may have been when I was younger, I have always put the needs of the pack before my own. My focus, first and foremost, has always been the protection and well-being of my shifters. Because of that, my people are loyal and hold enormous respect for me—unlike Ryla.
“Fine,” I say heavily as I pull myself up to my feet. I really just want to stay here by the fire and chat with the beautiful women, but I know that the elder is right. I have to go to London and retrieve Ryla.
I have no great love for her. Not that I have anything against the woman, but I don’t know her at all. I only met her once when we were much, much younger. Right after our meeting, she instantly fled the country in order to run away from our mating ceremony before it even had a chance to get started.
I didn’t really give it much thought back then. I didn’t actually care what Ryla did one way or the other. I had just ascended to the position of alpha and taken over the pack. My attention was on that, not on her. I didn’t feel like settling down anyways. So, when Ryla left, I indulged myself with the many other women in the pack and the various pleasantries that I had at my disposal as alpha. I focused on my duties, enjoyed myself when I could, and didn’t think about the beautiful, young mate that left me just as we were both on the brink of adulthood. Until the elders began to whisper amongst themselves at the start of this year. My birthday is coming up and I’ll soon be of the age that the arranged mating will come to matter again. I can’t push it off any longer.
